“My mother is in the [intensive care unit] at Eastern Maine Medical Center on life support,” Mike Savage of Bangor said of Mary Savage, 83, also of Bangor. “Her injuries are life threatening.”

Mary Savage was a passenger in a vehicle driven by her daughter Melissa Savage, 55, of Bangor when about 1 p.m. it apparently was rear-ended by a white Chevrolet truck driven by Nicholas Mitchell, 21, of Levant, Sgt. Bill Birch of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office has said.

The force of the impact sent Savage’s maroon Ford Focus into oncoming traffic, where it struck a Nissan truck driven by David Nelson, 64, of Exeter.

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“My sister has a broken rib and lower back pain,” Mike Savage said. “My mother has a fractured neck … and she had some brain injury. It’s likely she will not recover.”

Mary Savage has been released from the hospital, Mike Savage said.

Savage’s car had severe damage to the rear end and some front-end damage. The driver’s discharged white air bag was visible shortly after the crash. The white truck could be seen in the ditch.

Four of the five people in the vehicles went to the hospital, Birch said. The condition of Nicholas Mitchell and Joan DiNatale, 52, of Exeter, who was traveling in the Nissan truck, were not available Monday.

Calls to the sheriff’s office were not returned Monday.

Detectives trained in accident reconstruction spent hours investigating the crash, which occurred between Billings Road and Bond Road near Pleasant Hill Campground. The roadway was closed for more than five hours.

What caused the accident is still unknown, said Mike Savage, who has been speaking with detectives.

His mother and sister were out on one of their daily drives when the crash occurred, he said.

“My mother doesn’t drive so my sister takes her,” Savage said. “They’ve done that drive a thousand times. They had just stopped at a yard sale and they sometimes go to a [farm] stand in Levant to get cucumbers, if they have any. That’s where they were going.”

CORRECTION:

A previous version of this story incorrectly said that all four people in the vehicles were hospitalized. Four of five people traveling in the vehicles went to the hospital; David Nelson, 64, of Exeter was not hospitalized.